Surgical staplers are used in surgical procedures to seal, divide, and/or transect tissues in the body by closing openings in tissue, blood vessels, ducts, shunts, or other objects or body parts involved in the particular procedure. The openings can be naturally occurring, such as passageways in blood vessels, airways or an internal lumen or organ like the stomach, or they can be formed by the surgeon during a surgical procedure, such as by puncturing tissue or blood vessels to form a bypass or an anastomosis, or by cutting tissue during a stapling procedure.
Most staplers have a handle with an elongate flexible or rigid shaft having a pair of opposed jaws formed on an end thereof for holding and forming staples therebetween. At least one of the opposed jaws is movable relative to the other jaw. In the case of laparoscopic surgery, often one jaw is fixed and the other is movable. In some devices (for example an open linear stapler), the opposed jaws can be separated by the operator and reassembled providing the relative motion needed for tissue placement. The staples are typically contained in a staple cartridge, which can house multiple rows of staples and is often disposed in one of the two jaws for ejection of the staples to the surgical site. In use, the jaws are positioned so that the object to be stapled is disposed between the jaws, and staples are ejected and formed when the jaws are closed and the device is actuated. Some staplers include a knife configured to travel between rows of staples in the staple cartridge to longitudinally cut the stapled tissue between the stapled rows. Placement of the device, manipulation of components or systems of the device, and other actuations of the device such as articulation, firing, etc. can be accomplished in a variety of ways, such as electromechanically, mechanically, or hydraulically.
While surgical staplers have improved over the years, a number of problems can potentially arise. Although rare, as illustrated in FIG. 1, one problem is that leaks can occur due to staples S forming tears H when penetrating a tissue T or other object in which the staples S are disposed. Blood, air, gastrointestinal fluids, and other fluids can seep through the tears H formed by the staples S, even after the staples S are fully formed. The tissue T being treated can also become inflamed due to the manipulations and deformations that can occur during stapling. Still further, staples, as well as other objects and materials implanted during stapling procedures, generally lack the same characteristics as tissue in which they are implanted. For example, staples and other objects and materials can lack the natural flexibility of the tissue in which they are implanted. A person skilled in the art will recognize that it is often desirable for tissue to maintain as much of its natural characteristics as possible after staples are disposed therein.
Accordingly, there remains a need for methods and devices for reinforcing a staple line.